ISLAMABAD: Bollywood’s reigning king Shah Rukh Khan’s dropped the trailer this week for his latest production for streaming giant Netflix, “Bard of Blood,” inciting an overwhelmingly negative response from viewers for its “jingoistic” storyline, with the Pakistan Army also weighing in.
The series is based on a book of the same name written by Bilal Siddiqi. The trailer begins in Balochistan, a southwestern province in Pakistan, and shows that Indian spies captured by Pakistan are about to be beheaded before they can relay important information to India. Former spy Kabir Anand, played by Emraan Hashmi, is then tasked by the government of India to travel to Balochistan for a rescue mission.
In Pakistan, the trailer has drawn sharp criticism and is being seen as an irresponsible attempt at war-mongering at a time when tensions between arch-rivals India and Pakistan are at an all-time high over the disputed Kashmir region.
Among the Pakistans irked by the trailer was Pakistan Army Spokesman General Asif Ghafoor who tweeted at Khan, asking the actor to use his platform to promote peace and highlight human rights violations by India in Jammu and Kashmir.

Other Pakistani Twitter users also took to the social media platform to express disapproval.

This Twitter user accused Khan of making “jingoistic content”:

Producer Khan, lead Hashmi, wroter Siddiqi.

As panic & fear has taken over Indian Muslims with Kashmir lockdown & NRC in Assam, Bollywood Muslims are busy making jingoistic content. https://t.co/KJ9pRNp2If

Am I allowed to snigger a little at SRK fangirls and boys who were propping him up as the ideal silent bystander on Kashmir? If his utterly trashy film choices hadn’t woken you up yet to the fact that he only cares about big money & commercial success, then perhaps this will. https://t.co/YLpcNRcAli

Government unilaterally decided not to fully merge paramilitary forces with KP police

The Khasadars and Levies personnel are demanding the full rights and privileges of police around the country

Updated 14 September 2019

REHMAT MEHSUD

September 14, 2019 19:25

PESHAWAR: Two days after the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Assembly passed a bill that would bring 28,000 personnel of the Levies and Khasadar paramilitary forces previously operating in the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) under the command of the provincial police, province-wide protests erupted led by the All FATA Khasadar Force Committee on Saturday, with campaigners demanding their full integration with police.
In January this year, the government announced that thousands of existing local paramilitary personnel recruited from among the tribes of former FATA would be merged with KP police, after a constitutional amendment last year merged the tribal areas with neighboring KP province and the Supreme Court abolished draconian colonial era laws under which entire tribes were held responsible for the crime committed by an individual.

But the government on Thursday took a unilateral decision against merging the two inadequately trained forces into KP police immediately, though the law gives them the allowance to fully merge with the provincial force at a later stage. According to the hotly protested bill, two special Khasadar and Levies forces would instead be working parallel to the police, in a move that representatives of the forces deem unacceptable.
“We plan to mobilize 28,000 plus Khasadar and Levies personnel for a decisive sit-in in Peshawar, and then at Bani Gala in front of the Prime Minister’s home,” Syed Jalal Wazir, chairman All FATA Khasadar and Levy Force Committee, told Arab News.
“We will ask the Prime Minister... if you have merged tribal areas with KP then merge us with the police, but if tribal areas’ merger is just an eyewash, then we will step back from our legitimate demand,” he said.

On Thursday, as KP Assembly Speaker Mushtaq Ghani chaired the session, Khasadar and Levies personnel chanted slogans against the bill outside and demanded they be given the perks and privileges enjoyed by the police force in the rest of the country. The bill was tabled without allowing for debate, which caused pandemonium in the house.
But Information Minister Shaukat Yousafzai said the reservations of former FATA personnel were unfounded, and that they were toeing the opposition’s line.
“It is totally unfair that Khasadars and Levies personnel have opted for protests. I know the opposition is behind them, fueling protests to destabilize the provincial government,” he said.
But the opposition bench said the government must take opposition lawmakers into confidence before introducing bills of public importance.
Opposition member from the Awami National Party (ANP), Sardar Hussain Babak, said KP’s Chief Minister, Mahmood Khan, had promised the Khasadars and Levies personnel that they would be fully absorbed into provincial police, but the pledge had never materialized.
According to Wazir, over 2,000 Khasadars and Levies Force personnel attended Saturday’s protest camp in Bajaur tribal district to protest the bill. Arab News could not independently verify the figure.
He said the new law was unacceptable, and that the Police Act 2017, which made KP police more accountable to elected institutions at district and provincial levels, should be applied to the Khasadar Force.
“We can go to any extent to get our constitutionally mandated rights,” Wazir said. “Otherwise our generation will suffer.”